


The Lion Sleeps Tonight

by OdalRune314



Series: Beyond Normalcy [1]
Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Ancient Eldritch Entity!Keralis, And health potions are real tension destroyers., Angst, Area 77, Broken Bones, Contrived coincidence, Cross-Posted on Wattpad, Doc getting emotional over a dead tree, Drowning, Enby iskall, Gen, Hallucinations, Mind Manipulation, Minor Character Death, Minor Injuries, Missing Persons, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Plant Monsters, The nHo Jungle, Tw head injuries, blood mention, end of season 6, implied dehydration, murder trees
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 27
Words: 19,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28475919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OdalRune314/pseuds/OdalRune314
Summary: When Scar's 'pet' escapes Area 77 and flees to the jungle where it was found, Doc and Scar follow in hot pursuit.When BDubs keeps on getting these strange dreams, containing coordinates, he and Keralis embark upon a journey together to find what his mind is trying to tell him.When Iskall and Tomato Yoshi both vanish without a trace, Sherlock Cub and Renson set out to find them, even to far-away shores if needed.The three groups soon find themselves chasing each other's trails, and all the while something far, far more sinister is going on in the background.In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight...
Relationships: They’re friends :) - Relationship
Series: Beyond Normalcy [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2085714
Comments: 17
Kudos: 26





	1. Prologue: Harmless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is actually two in one. Before I posted the original of this to Wattpad, I made two introductory chapters for this and put them in my Season 6 oneshots book.
> 
> Enjoy :D

It was a chilly morning in early February on the Hermitcraft server. The wind was rustling through the trees, and clouds drifted lazily through the sky. The birds sang, the dogs barked, the cats meowed. Occasionally one could hear a quip, a laugh, from two early-bird hermits meeting whilst going about their business. And the alarms were blaring at Area 77.

Doc soared down from the raid farm, stumbling a bit in his hurry to land. He pulled out his communicator as he made his way to the control room, quickly sending Scar a message to meet up, and bring his HIB gear. Doc then put his communicator away, and quickly changed into his own suit, grabbing a few useful gadgets.

Scar arrived mere seconds later, flying at inhuman speeds. Doc suspected that a little bit of Vex magic was likely involved here, but he didn't confront Scar on it. They headed in, Scar turning on the viewscreens as Doc scanned them for whatever could be causing the disturbance in the status quo. He found nothing, until-

"Over there."

New New Hermitville. The map showed Cub, Keralis and an unknown entity. The source of the problem. From the way the three were moving, it was obvious that the situation had developed into a combat. Doc and Scar suspected that the two hermits out there, even with Vex magic on their side, would be drastically outmatched. This was a job for the HIB.

———

Keralis gasped in temporary relief as Cub threw another shield up, though he was clearly showing signs of cracking under the pressure and sheer expenditure of power.

"What even is that thing!?" Keralis shouted, more at the universe than anyone in particular.

"I don't know, but it's supposed to be dead!" Cub replied, shouting from the stress the battle was putting on him.

Just then, the shield flickered. Cub cried out, trying his best to relight the dying fire of the spell. But it was to no end. The shield fell. And there was a massive alien monster towering over them. Cub threw himself in front of Keralis, forming a human shield in place of the magical one.

Cub closed his eyes, bracing for his inevitable end. Ironic, huh, how it would technically be Scar's fault for not killing that thing in the first place. His own death would be the fault of his best friend. How tropey.

But before the monster could hurt Cub, there was the familiar crackle of Vex magic once more. Cub opened his eyes to see Scar standing there, shielding them with his own magic. Doc, meanwhile, had taken down the beast with a syringe of tranquilliser. Scar relaxed, dropping the shield and approaching the alien.

"Is that...?" Doc gestured at the thing.

"Fluffy? Yeah. Probably just got a bit antsy that I didn't take him for a walk yesterday." Scar replied, shrugging.

"Fl- Fluffy!? A walk!?" Cub asked, surprised and mildly horrified. "You were supposed to kill it!"

Scar paused for a moment, stared at Fluffy, then shook his head. He took out the memory-wipe crossbow and fired it at the two civilians.

"We should take it in." Doc pointed out, picking up one side. Scar nodded as he picked up the other. They both carried it back to Area 77. And, as soon as they were out of earshot, a certain voice could be heard.

"I sure hope you know what you are getting yourself into, old friend, because I sure don't."

———

Later that day, Cub had received a message from Grian. Cub softly landed in the man’s base, immediately looking around for the hermit who had summoned him here. The area he'd landed in held a literal chest monster, which caused Cub to chuckle a little. You can't hang out with Scar as long as Cub has without the concept of the chest monster becoming at least a little bit funny.

Grian shot up from the floor below, holding a shulker box. Cub looked at him curiously as he drifted down next to Cub. Grian placed the shulker on the ground, quickly checking its contents. Cub couldn't resist taking a peek at what was in the box over Grian's shoulder; it appeared to be all of Grian's Sherlock things. Cub suddenly realised why he was here.

"Cub." Grian's voice shook Cub out of his thoughts. "As I'm sure you are aware, I'm leaving the season... Tomorrow afternoon, I believe."

Cub nodded along, pretending to not know where this was going, partially because it was a responsibility he felt that he couldn't accept, what with everything else he was balancing.

"You're a smart person." Grian continued. "One of the most observant, careful people on the server."

"And... What do those two statements have in common?" Cub asked, trying to maintain his cool and casual veneer.

"Sherlock Grian. You see, without me on the server, there needs to be a new Sherlock. And I can't think of anyone better for the job than you."

Cub involuntarily chuckled, his suspicions confirmed. "I think there are plenty of people better at this than me."

“Oh, really?” Grian asked, raising an eyebrow. "Tell me, how quickly did you figure out the Jangler case?"

"That doesn't count.” Cub quickly countered, dodging the question. “I know Scar personally. I noticed how he was acting."

"What about season four, with the Logfellas, then?" Grian suggested.

"You weren't there. It was nothing." Cub dismissed again.

"Doc tells me that in season five, you were the first to make sense of his ramblings after he escaped the jungle." Grian tried once more.

"That was a lucky guess." Cub shrugged, refusing to acknowledge Grian’s point.

"A lucky guess that nobody else could've made. Cub. You're the perfect Sherlock for this server." Grian replied. “Almost more perfect than me.” He added, teasingly. "But I'm leaving."

Cub sighed. "Fine. But I don't think I'll do a good job."

"You just need to act confident, and keep focused, then you'll be fine." Grian assured Cub.

———

Cub sat back in his chair. It felt strange, being here and not just being a guest. He adjusted his scarf for the umpteenth time, trying to assure himself that he deserved to be in this position.

He watched people fly about the shopping district, trying to guess what they were up to. He saw Iskall go into Big Logz Inc., then pop out a few minutes later balancing a few shulker boxes. Probably working on their base and needed some more stripped oak. Nevermind that Iskall could've found pre-stripped logs on the USS Undercut.

He watched as Iskall made their way across the shopping district, deep in thought. Suddenly, they looked up at a tree, startled, and speedwalked the rest of the way to Sahara. Cub turned his back on the window, and began to pace his office, still doubting himself. He adjusted his scarf again. It was becoming a nervous habit to do that, he noticed.

Suddenly, yet also somehow a few minutes later, the doorbell went off. Cub rushed to his chair, trying his best to look professional. His first case on his first day. He wondered who it would be and what needed solving. He hoped it'd be something easy. Boy howdy, was he wrong.


	2. Klaxons

_Entry number one._

_This it, then.  
This is how it all begins.  
This is the beginning of our glorious tale._

_We found this jungle, and have set up shop. We made these cool blankets out of leaves. The other three are asleep right now. But me? I've decided to document our glorious conquest._

_It hasn't started well, to be fair. We had cave troubles, resource troubles, all that. But we're over it, and stronger for it. Our battle begins at sunrise. And we will surely win._

_I keep on having this itch, right on my shoulder. I hope there aren't bugs or anything._

_Long live the nHo,  
BDoubleO100_

.............................

Scar groaned as his alarm went off, rolling out of bed. He stretched, almost cat-like - he'd probably picked it up from Jellie - and got ready to start to day. He put on his uniform for his role as Captain Angry Eyes, and set off for Area 77. And then he realised he had his casual hat on. He turned tail, flew back, and quickly changed it.

Once he got to Area 77, properly hatted, he and Doc sat down and discussed the state of affairs in Hermitcraft, from the continued existence of the Dragon Bros to the random flying elder guardian that had landed in Falsewell. They were just agreeing that they should get the HIB on a lot of the cases when the kind of alarm people don't like going off went off.

As they rushed down to the hangar, Scar involuntarily covered his ears with his hat. The alarms were coming from Fluffy’s kennel, in Section 3, where the door was broken down, water spilling out. Not good. Wet footsteps led out the hangar door. Scar and Doc nodded at each other, Scar magically turned off the alarms, and they followed the trail.

They tracked the trail all the way through Falsewell, through Hermit Land, past Demise Dares and up to the Nether portal. Doc and Scar glanced at each other, and followed the creature into the hellish dimension. They only realised that the trail would have evaporated after they got through. Thankfully, the thing was heavy enough to leave footprints in netherrack.

The trail of footprints, then smudged lumps of netherrack, led them all the way to a portal that was too familiar to the both of them. The place where the ConVex had crashed in the start of the season. The place where the thing had first been picked up. A jungle that sent shivers down Doc's spine when he saw it.

Now, neither of them would usually be the type to be scared of anything. But here, now, they both needed another to help them find the courage to go through the Nether portal. Each closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped through the glowing purple portal, bracing themselves for whatever awaited them on the other side.

They opened their eyes to jungle. Scar picked his way through the undergrowth to the Vexes' shipwreck, to gather the supplies they needed to confront the creature in an environment neither of them had any control over. Weapons, food, tin foil hats and suchlike. Their standard alien-hunting gear. They really should've changed into their HIB outfits. This was a job for no other.

They carefully made their way up the winding path into the jungle. The plants rustled with the kind of life that have the two Area 77 officials the vibe that this jungle wasn't your average vanilla biome. Unfamiliar vines grew down from the trees. Unfamiliar birds called from above. Unfamiliar animals ran past them, brushing up against their legs. How were they going to find Scar's pet in all this?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so it begins...


	3. Kidnapped

_Entry number five._

_We've now secured a sizeable amount of land within this Jungle, and are working out the neighbouring mesa. Construction has begun on our base of operations, and it's going great._

_I'm kinda worried about the others, though. Something seems slightly off with the way they're all acting, like they all have much shorter tempers than usual. They've been snappy, and arguing with each other a lot. I hope I'm not acting like that myself. Infighting isn’t good for a mighty empire like ours._

_As for the itches? I don't think those are mosquito bites. Not when they're turning green like that. I don't know what they are. And, to be perfectly honest, I'm kinda afraid._

_Long live the nHo,  
BDoubleO100_

.......................

Tomato Yoshi sat with his feet in the lake, cooling off after a long day. He and Ren were going to meet up again soon, share what they learned and what had happened to them. Tomato Yoshi stretched, and looked at the portal on the horizon. Ren wasn't there yet. Maybe he'd been a little held up.

He suddenly heard a rustling in the bushes. Curious, he went to take a look. A baby ocelot was all tangled up in the branches. Tomato Yoshi carefully extracted it from the bushes, and set it down. It curled up against his leg, purring.

"Remember, young one. The path of true wisdom is open to all, even to cats like you."

He stood up, and felt something curl around his ankle. He looked down, and saw a thin vine. He bent down to tell it about something deep and enlightening when it suddenly tightened. It quickly pulled him down, and the ground magically swallowed him. He didn't have time to make a noise, but the baby ocelot sure did. And it screamed.

———

Iskall winked at the ConCorp drone they knew was watching them, as they casually strolled into the shopping district, diamonds rattling in their pocket. Sure, they wanted Richskall back, but they really needed logs and Ren really needed diamonds. It was perfectly fair and, in fact, charitable of them. They walked over to big logs incorporated, not bothered with how long they'd take.

They went over to the oak wood chest, took out some logs, and paid for them: an act which would have been surprising to do for Ren back in Season 4. Iskall chuckled to themself. Ah, how times change. They felt bad for some of the things they'd said in the later half of the trial. They'd probably upset Ren for real.

They shrugged their thoughts away, and went to go check on Sahara stock. They swore they could've felt the trees looking at them ominously as they walked past. Probably just their imagination. Still, they were glad to be away from vegetation when they entered the Sahara building, spine aching from all the shivers sent down it.

Iskall checked the stock: still plenty. They went upstairs to enjoy the fresh air. They never appreciated the courtyard area Grian had made, with the fountain, enough. They stood around, loitering, as the wind tousled their hair. They sighed, and went to get back to work, adjusting their tie. It still existed, albeit invisible, despite the skin shenanigainry, somehow.

They laughed loudly as they stepped into the bubble column. They went into the Sahara mechanism to pick up the profits. Before they could claim them, though, they felt their communicator buzz. They pulled it out to check it, but were distracted by something around their ankle. They looked down to see a small green vine. It suddenly tightened, and magically pulled them into the ground. Nobody was there to hear them scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oopsie-daisy! (But not an Oopsy Daisy, that's different.)


	4. Nightmares

BDubs woke up in a cold sweat. And also face-first on the floor. He groaned, pushing himself back up into bed, and made a noise of protest when he saw the sun peeking up over the horizon. He had by no measure gotten enough sleep, what with all these stupid nightmares waking him up in the middle of the night.

He yawned loudly, and dragged himself out of bed again, blankets wrapped around him like a cape. He stepped onto his balcony, blinking the glare of the sun out of his eyes. He looked over New New Hermitville, a smile appearing on his face. He loved the town. His and Keralis' work was beautiful. Oh, and speak of the devil-

"BUBBLES!"

Keralis appeared out of nowhere, shouting. He half-crashed, half-landed beside BDubs. BDubs stumbled back, startled. He crashed into the wall as he did so, bumping his head. Keralis picked himself up off the floor, at first slowly but then quickly, rushing over when he saw BDubs gingerly rubbing the the spot he'd hit with his hand.

Keralis quickly began to assess BDubs for a concussion, checking to see if he could walk in a straight line, talk coherently, tell Keralis how many fingers he was holding up, all that. When Keralis was no longer concerned that BDubs might have a concussion, he turned his attention to something he'd noticed whilst he was doing that: the heavy bags under BDubs' eyes.

"Bubbles... when was the last time you slept?" Keralis asked, instantly concerned.

"Last night. I only just woke up." BDubs answered.

"You've been sleeping every night? No all-nighters?" Keralis continued.

"I've been trying to get my full eight hours, yeah. Why?" BDubs asked, mildly confused by this point.

"You look kinda-just-a-little-bit tired." Keralis explained.

BDubs chuckled softly, sadly.

"Wow. Guess the nightmares have been affecting me more than I realized. Huh."

"What nightmares!?"

BDubs sighed and shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. Keralis watched this motion, concerned. BDubs shrugged, and chuckled again.

"They're really nothing. Just some bad memories resurfacing."

"BUBBLES!" Keralis complained, "They're clearly not nothing if they're making you that tired!"

BDubs sighed again, shrugging. He fought back a yawn, but to no avail. At this, Keralis gave him a Look.

Five minutes later, BDubs found himself on a couch, describing his nightmares to Keralis. Keralis was intensely taking notes, connecting each and every similarity with arrows. Anyone who saw the paper on Keralis' clipboard without any context at all would think that Keralis was some kind of eccentric conspiracy theorist or something, with all the seemingly spurious connections being made.

BDubs honestly thought that Keralis was going just a smidgen over the top here. Why was Keralis so hell-bent on finding a similarity between all of the nightmares? It wasn't as if they had a magical source or something. They were just bad dream, probably brought on by BDubs thinking too hard about stressful things like Demise. Those happen.

But then Keralis looked at his clipboard in surprise. He crossed out a lot of things, and violently checked one, before looking up.

"You know that sequence of numbers you mentioned?"

"7629-60-4583?"

"What do they mean to you?"

"I dunno. Nothing much."

"Because they were in every single dream you had."

BDubs gasped, and began to think harder about that sequence. The format sounded familiar in a strange sort of way, like... Like... Like coordinates! BDubs sat up, and quickly explained his findings to Keralis. The numbers were coordinates. And so, the two decided on a natural course of action: go on an adventure to find those coordinates. Because following weird dream messages always works out great for everyone. Definitely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes. The last sentence is absolutely always true. Nothing will ever go wrong. Nope.
> 
> Also, I am fully aware that Keralis is kinda OOC in this. At least I did my best fix it, so it’s better than it was.


	5. Aimless

_Entry number seven._

_I FOUND YOUR JOURNAL, BDUBS!_

_Okay, I'm done, I’m done. I suppose I should update this for you. We've found and identified lots of interesting plants that could be useful against our enemies. Imagine the arsenal of weapons we could build!_

_But you're right, BDubs. There's something wrong. It doesn't seem to have affected you, but it's got me tight in its grasp. I... I don't know what it is, but lately I've just been feeling so angry. I suppose we should be glad I found this journal in a lucid moment, eh?_

_Long live the nHo,  
Ethoslab_

..............................

Three hours in, and Doc and Scar were thoroughly lost in the jungle. Scar had calmed down from the initial apprehension, but Doc had almost gotten more nervous. They were currently taking a break, relaxing in a clearing. Well, Scar was relaxing. Doc was pacing around the perimeter, eyeing all of the trees with suspicion. Scar pulled out a couple of golden carrots, and offered one to Doc. Doc refused it, on the grounds of needing to conserve their supplies.

After a couple of minutes, they continued their jungle exploration. They'd lost the creature's trail some time ago, and were trying to find it again. This was an entirely fruitless endeavour, however, seeing how thick the undergrowth was and how many other large creatures there were to leave trails on what little exposed ground there was available.

The two Area 77 officials wandered into a grove of flowers when Scar spotted a trail that resembled that of his pet. Scar picked his way over to the footprints, careful not to touch any of the flowers in case they were dangerous. But, careful as he was, he couldn't stop his leg brushing against one. He froze in place, not daring to move a muscle-

"HA-ha-ha-haaa!"

Oh. That's all that the flowers did. Just laughed a little. They just laughed a laugh that sounded eerily like Iskall's laugh. It sent a shiver down Scar's spine, but it wasn't even the worst thing that he'd seen today. He finished weaving his way through the field, kneeling down beside the footprints.

He looked at them for a moment, then turned and nodded to Doc. Doc tried to pick his way through the flowers, but set one off by accident. It startled him so much that he stumbled back, bumping into another one. And so the cycle repeated, until the air was full of Iskall's laugh. Doc covered his ears, eye watering.

Scar quickly covered his ears with his hat, and dragged Doc out of the field as quickly as he could. As the laughter died out, Doc collapsed, shaken to his very core. Scar couldn't have gotten Doc to stand even if he'd tried. Instead, Scar just sat down beside Doc, offering any moral support if Doc needed it.

They sat there like that for a couple minutes, until Doc's soft hyperventilation returned to normal, and Doc collected himself as much as possible. Scar stood up, giving Doc a hand to get back to his own feet. Doc looked at the field of flowers with a horrified little shiver.

"How do you think it got Iskall's laugh?" He asked, trying to make light of the situation.

"I don't know, or want to." Scar replied.

The two set off into the jungle again after that, following the trail wordlessly, trying not to lose it, hoping that nobody would get hurt, and that nothing would be destroyed. This jungle was definitely not a normal biome, and both of them knew it all too well.


	6. Sherlock

_Entry number eight._

_As you, my definitely-not-imaginary reader can probably tell from the previous entry, Etho found this journal. That's fine, that's okay, he put it back afterwards._

_What's not okay is what happened next. He... He told Doc. And Doc lost it. I'm writing this hiding up in a tree._

_I'm scared. It seems to only get worse. And... It already seems to be at its worst. Just how bad can it get?_

_Long live the nHo  
BDoubleO100_

.............................

Ren looked at the scene before him, thoroughly confused. Tomato Yoshi was nowhere to be found, and a traumatised ocelot kitten had attached itself to him. Ren guessed that the two were probably related, which led to a posse of other questions.

Ren sighed. He decided to contact Iskall, since they were both smart and, last time Ren checked, online. He sent Iskall a PM asking if the Swede could help with something. After a couple minutes of no response, Ren began to worry. He hopped back through the Nether portal, and began making his way towards the shopping district. That's where they'd probably be.

A couple minutes later, Ren arrived in the shopping district. He was about to begin his own search when he noticed Sherlock's place. Ren made his way over there, hoping to borrow some detecting equipment since there was no Grian to be Sherlock Grian. He was caught by surprise, however, when he noticed a sign posted on the door.

> Cub's Sherlock now.  
>  Remind him to change  
>  the address  
>  -G

Ren shrugged, and rang the doorbell. The familiar sound rang out, and he braced himself for the drop in. Despite this preparation, he still let out an involuntary yelp as the floor fell out from under him and he was rocketed about, then shot up into Sherlock Cub's office.

The man (vex?) himself was sitting in the big chair in the middle of the room, looking professional, but also slightly nervous. Ren didn't know what gave him that feeling, but the sense was there nonetheless. He stepped into the office, trying his best not to look too worried, despite the fact that his closest friend was missing in action.

"Ah. Renson." Cub remarked, drumming his fingers on the table. "I take it that something is wrong. You've made a valiant effort in keeping calm, though I can see you're worried." Cub observed. "How can I help?"

"I'd like to report a missing person, possibly two."

"Who is it?" Cub asked, concern entering his voice. If any of the hermits were MIA... It didn't bear thinking about.

"Tomato Yoshi, and possibly Iskall."

Cub was about to speak, when he realised something was wrong. He'd seen Iskall not five minutes prior. He pointed this out to Ren, and Ren showed Cub the PM he'd sent Iskall three minutes before, and its conspicuous lack of reply.

"Well, I last saw them heading to Sahara, so let's check there. Come with me, Renson?"

Ren nodded, and the two left the office à la Peter Pan, yeeting themselves out of the window. Apparently Cub didn't care for making proper exits either. They made their way over to Sahara, Ren half-running into the building in his concern.

As they entered, they saw a hole in the floor, likely where Iskall would go collect profits. The two made their way over, Ren gently dropping in, then Cub. They looked around, and realised they were in Sahara's Redstone. Cub looked around, Ren loudly calling for Iskall. But they found nothing- until Ren's heel bumped into something. Iskall's communicator. It was open to the PM conversation with Ren, reply half-typed.

Whatever it was had caught the mighty Iskall off-guard. The two knew they were in for quite the adventure.


	7. Capsized

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for this chapter/later chapters being late. A significant chunk of the internet in the UK has been going down, and so I haven’t been able to access ao3.
> 
> That said, enjoy!

"Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream!" Keralis sang cheerily as the two boated across a massive ocean, still in search of BDubs' mysterious dream coordinates. The sun was settling down below the horizon, and BDubs was staring tiredly into the water.

"Keralis, for the love of Vex, please. Stop." He protested. "I'm gonna try and get a couple hours of sleep." Keralis promptly shut up, although the twinkle in his eyes seemed to glow brighter, as if some aspect of BDubs’ remark was mildly amusing. BDubs chose to ignore this, and allowed the gentle rocking of the boat to ease him to sleep.

Keralis kept rowing, occasionally checking that they were still heading vaguely towards the coordinates that BDubs had found, and trying his best not to capsize the rowboat. He fell into a sort of daze as he did so, with nothing to hold his attention for more than a millisecond. He just kept rowing on and on across this seemingly endless ocean. He had to fight off the temptation to start softly singing to himself again.

Eventually, he noticed movement in his peripheral. He looked down, and saw BDubs tossing and turning, clearly not having a good dream. Keralis set down the oars for a second, and cautiously made his way across the boat. Gently, he put a hand on BDubs' shoulder to take him out of the nightmare, but he hesitated. Surely BDubs needed the sleep?

In that moment of hesitation, BDubs' rest calmed, so Keralis let go, and got back to rowing. The sooner this was over, the better. Seeing BDubs like this hurt Keralis. Keralis kept rowing, kept staring into space, but now he needed to occasionally pause to comfort BDubs when the dream got bad. The moon was high above them, and it was well past midnight by the looks of things, and clouds seemed to be gathering above, but Keralis kept going.

At about 3am, when a light drizzle had picked up, something slightly different happened. BDubs let out a cry of fear, and Keralis looked up, expecting to see BDubs awake and dazed. Instead, he was still asleep, and beginning to become restless again. Keralis reached out to him, but BDubs kicked out, knocking Keralis' legs out from him. Keralis landed badly, and, combined with BDubs' tossing and turning, the boat began to list.

Keralis tried to right the boat, but it was no use. The boat kept tipping, and the two wouldn't be able to stay in it much longer. To make things worse, the rain was becoming a proper storm, and the waves looked too rough to swim in. Keralis tried to make his way to BDubs, but lost his balance and got a rather large amount of saltwater in his eyes. When his vision cleared, Keralis realised that he was only barely in the boat, and BDubs was gone.

"BUBBLES!" Keralis yelled, jumping into the water. He looked around, trying to spot BDubs in the murky depths. Eventually he caught sight of his red bandanna, deep beneath the water. Keralis took a deep breath and dived after BDubs, desperate to save him from the depths. He caught BDubs, and, wrapping one arm around him, tried to swim back to the surface.

The two broke through the waves, Keralis gasping for breath and BDubs somehow still asleep. Fighting to keep BDubs above the surface, Keralis looked around through the increasing rain for the boat. Spotting it, he swam towards it, gently bringing BDubs towards safety. The boat was upside-down, but Keralis gently hoisted BDubs onto it anyway. 

Keralis tried to clamber on himself, but he slipped, and the force of one of the waves combined with the loss of control from his fall smacked his forehead on the hull, and everything faded to black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Row, row, row your boat,  
> Gently down the stream!  
> If you see a crocodile,  
> Don’t forget to scream!


	8. Senseless

_Entry Number Ten._

_There's definitely something wrong here. Beef went off to collect firewood today, and didn't come back. We went looking for him, and found him sitting in a shadowy glade freaking out. We got him back, but Etho has a black eye now._

_In other news, remember that mosquito bite on my shoulder? It's definitely not one. It's sprouted a vine, and several other spots like it have appeared._

_I'm scared. What's happening to us?_

_Long live the nHo,  
BDoubleO100_

.............................

"You know what?" Scar yelled, vaguely in a Docwards direction but mostly to the world at large, "I hate, and I mean hate, pandas. I have lost all respect for them. In my eyes, they are nothing but meany bears."

This particular bout of panda-induced rage had been incited by the two Area 77 officials stumbling off Fluffy's trail and onto that of a panda for the umpteenth time. Well, at least, the two of them hoped it was a panda, and not anything else that could be perhaps more inclined to maim and/or kill them.

"Scar. Stay focused." Doc upbraided.

"Sorry. Let's... let's keep going."

And with that, Scar wandered off into the jungle. Doc ran to keep up, and the two wandered the jungle for some time, trying to find any trail. All they found, however, was a parrot with a perfectly round hole ripped in its throat.

"Lovely." Doc remarked, as they continued onward from that gruesome sight, his voice drier than a desert with sarcasm. Suddenly, Scar paused, and started looking around, alarmed.

"What was that?"

"What was what?"

"That snapping- DOC GET DOWN!" Scar yelled, dropping to the ground.

Doc turned around, saw the giant plant monster Scar had seen, and ducked. He tripped on a root trying to get away, and fell the rest of the way down. Hitting the ground knocked the wind out of him, and worse, caused his cybernetic eye to cut out. Doc quickly rolled over onto his back, getting out his trident to defend himself- but the creature was gone. Doc sat up, and looked around, confused.

"Scar?" He called. There was no response. He got up, and couldn't see Scar anywhere. He called out again, and went looking for Scar. And then he saw the note.

> Doc. Gone to get more supplies from A77. Hold tight. -Scar.

Doc gasped. Scar had abandoned him. Scar had abandoned him in the jungle, knowing how much Doc hated the biome. Doc looked around frantically, trying to make head or tail from his surroundings. The jungle seemed to be closing in around him. He tried to calm down. Scar wouldn't abandon him, right? Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

"-work with me-" Doc turned around, looking around. He could've sworn he'd heard Scar's voice for a second there. And then his eye flickered into life.

Doc was instantly disoriented. His mechanical eye was giving him information that was completely different to what his natural eye was seeing. Confused, he closed that eye, and looked around. He was sitting next to a tree, and Scar was wrapping his left arm in a bandage.

"What- what!?" Doc exclaimed, incredibly confused.

"Good question." Scar replied. "When I told you to get down, you didn't get out of the way in time. It sprayed something at you, and all of a sudden you were running around looking for me, even though I was right there. It started attacking you, and I had to drag you off from it. I only just got your eye working again."

"You didn't leave me here?" Doc asked, tears of relief welling up in his organic eye.

"Of course not. Why would I do that- oh." Scar brought up some magic, and gently touched the side of Doc's head. "Open your eye."

Doc did, and saw that it matched with what his cybernetic eye was seeing. And suddenly it all made sense. They’d been attacked by the same thing that had gotten Beef way back in the early days of the nHo, and what Beef had reported was a hallucination.

"You alright, Doc?"

"Yeah. I think I just solved an old mystery."

Still, as the two of them set to work setting up camp, since the sun was starting to set, Doc just had to wonder: if he was hallucinating, had he picked the right reality?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just remembered how bad the ending of this chapter is, lol. To clarify, it’s supposed to be existential and weird, not an indication to the nature of the rest of the story.


	9. Deduction

_Entry Number Eleven._

_I died today._

_Well, obviously I respawned, because I'm here writing, so why is it such a big deal that I died? Death happens. Permadeath has low chances for natural deaths. See, the problem wasn't that I died, or that I respawned. The problem was where I respawned: I had lost my bed, so I ended up at spawn._

_The feeling of being away from the Jungle was horrible, like something important had been taken away from me. I freaked out, and broke down. It was like I wasn't even myself anymore. I don't know why it happened, but I never want it to happen again._

_Eventually, I made my way back to the Jungle. Since then, I've tried to leave again, but I couldn't. I'd get so close to the edge of this place that I could see the sunlight shining down from the outside, and then my legs would get heavy, and I wouldn't be able to move them, or I'd remember something and hurry back to our base, only to forget what it was the moment I got back._

_What I'm saying is that I think, even though I'm not affected by whatever is going on with Doc, and Beef, and Etho, the Jungle still has me. I **can't** escape._

_Long live the nHo,  
BDoubleO100_

.............................

Cub sighed, looking at his notes about the scene of disappearance. He could pin down the time of Iskall's vanishing to within about to minutes, but that was literally all he had on the case of their kidnapping. He ran over his notes once more, just to be sure, but found nothing of use. No fingerprints, or hairs, or anything. Iskall might as well have been disintegrated by a ghost, except then there would be dust.

"I hope you're having better luck than me, Renson." He muttered, as Ren stood up, scribbled something down, then walked over to him.

"I'm sorry, but I've got nothing. The only footprints I could find were Iskall's coming in. As far as the evidence points, they walked in here, started to answer my message, and then promptly ceased existing." Ren explained.

"People don't just do that, Ren. Are you sure there wasn't anything else? Anything at all?" Cub sighed, exasperated.

"Just our own footprints, but that's a given." Ren shrugged.

"Great. So we've got no clues, no witnesses, only a crime and a time when it would've happened. For my first case, this is going terribly." Cub groaned.

"What about magic?"

"It doesn't feel authentic and Sherlock-y, but... do we have a choice?"

"I don't think we do... wait." Ren suddenly gasped, looking down at his ankle. A small vine had wrapped around it. Ren tried to pull himself out, but the vine had other ideas. It wrapped more tightly around his ankle, and began pulling him into the ground. Ren let out a yelp of surprise, echoed by Cub. The latter rushed forward and grabbed Ren's arm, trying to hold him up. Eventually, the vine gave up and let go. Ren stood up, dusting himself off.

"I think we found our prime suspect for who got Iskall." Cub remarked, stunned by the suddenness of the event.

"And Tomato Yoshi too!" Ren pointed out indignantly.

"And Tomato Yoshi too." Cub agreed halfheartedly. "Let me trace it." Cub muttered a few words in Vex under his breath, and a blue nimbus popped up around his head. A glowing blue line appeared in the floor, running in a straight line in a southeasterly direction.

"So we... follow the line?" Ren asked. "This really does have a different flavour to the last Sherlock adventure."

"Our culprit is clearly using magic, so why can't we?" Cub shrugged, his viewpoint turned around.

"Well then. To the rescue?" Ren asked.

"To the rescue." Cub agreed.

The two gathered up the materials necessary for a long journey into the far reaches of the server, and set off to rescue Iskall. And Tomato Yoshi too.


	10. Beach

BDubs woke up with his face covered in sand, a surprisingly uncommon occurrence for him. Slowly, he pushed himself up, dusting most of it off. He looked around, dazed. Why was he here again? The last thing he remembered was Keralis' terrible singing. He gasped, a horrible thought striking him out of the blue. Keralis. Something bad must have happened to land him here, so where was Keralis?

He found the guy passed out a few meters further down the beach, unconscious with the side of his head buried in the sand. Scattered between the two were what BDubs presumed to be the remains of their boat. Slowly, BDubs managed to get a vague idea of just what had happened.

As BDubs made his way over to Keralis, he started to notice that the sand was stained a deep red. It took him a couple seconds to process that, and then he yelled and picked up the pace, hightailing it over to Keralis. He knelt down beside Keralis, and gently turned him over, revealing a large gash on the side of his head.

"Ughh... wha?" Keralis groaned, beginning to stir. He suddenly gasped, and clutched the wound in pain. BDubs quickly pulled one of their few potions of healing out of his inventory, because nothing removes the idea of dramatic tension like the things, and handed it to Keralis. Keralis smiled thankfully, and downed the potion in one go. The wound on his head quickly closed.

"You alright?" BDubs asked.

"I'm alive." Keralis shrugged. "Right now, that's a win."

"I guess. Any idea where we are?" BDubs continued.

"No..." Keralis quickly pulled up his coords, "But now I do. And we're close to your coords."

"How close?"

"Few hundred blocks." Keralis estimated, refusing to entertain the idea of doing the calculations in his head.

"Great! Then let's continue to the South... East..." BDubs trailed off as he turned to face the direction they needed to head as he spoke, and horror dawned in his eyes. "Nope. Not that way. Nuh uh. Not going in there."

"Come on, Bubbles, it's just a jungle." Keralis shrugged, unfazed.

"Nope. Nope, nope, nope. No jungles. Not happening." BDubs denied vehemently. He crossed his arms and dug his heels into the sand.

"Well, I'm going." Keralis teased, prancing off in the direction of the Jungle, ever so innocently.

"...Fine. But only so that you don't get yourself killed." BDubs acquiesced, following after but dragging his heels the whole way.

———

"On second thought, I really don't like this." BDubs remarked, five minutes later, when the two were deeper into the Jungle.

"You're right... I don't think this is natural. I know hairy-scary-larry eldritch stuff when I see it, and this is it, and I... I don’t likey." Keralis agreed, then yelped in surprise as BDubs grabbed onto his arm.

"Don't abandon me?" BDubs pleaded, eyes filled with a fear Keralis had never seen in him before.

"I'd never." Keralis assured.

"Promise?" BDubs begged.

"I promise. Though... can I ask why?" Keralis inquired.

"I've been alone in jungles before. Never want to again." BDubs then muttered something else under his breath, but Keralis could only catch the word "Doc". Keralis just decided to let it be, since BDubs clearly didn't want to talk about it. The two continued through the Jungle in silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How many times can I shoehorn the word ‘idea’ into a chapter featuring Keralis and BDubs?


	11. Grief

_Entry Number Fourteen._

_I think it's safe to say that Doc has officially lost his mind. He came back to camp today yelling about something. I covered the vines first, I don't want to make him angry, and then I went out to greet him. Apparently he found a "talking tree" named "Old Jim". It obviously wasn't true, but I humored him._

_Apparently there are only two of these trees left in the Jungle, Old Jim and Julia. Apparently all of their names began with J back in the day: another reason why I think Doc's lost it. Doc and Old Jim allegedly had a very enlightening conversation about forest fires, and then Doc came back._

_You see why I say he's lost his mind, although... maybe, just maybe, he's not the only one._

_Long Live the nHo,  
BDoubleO100._

............................

The parrot dived from the tree, flapping wildly in Scar's face. He squawked himself, startled, trying to bat it away. Eventually he got the bird to leave him alone, enough to have his sight cleared. He sighed heavily when the main thing he saw was Doc trying to suppress his laughter. Scar cut him off with a glare.

"Alright, angry eyebrows" Doc sighed, lightly elbowing Scar. "I'll lay off it."

"I swear, if this Jungle isn't trying to kill us, it's trying to humiliate me! Since when was I the butt of every joke?" Scar ranted as the two continued walking. "I-"

"Stop."

"Don't-!"

"No, seriously. Stop. I think I recognise this place." Doc ordered, blocking Scar with his hand.

"How!? You've never been in this jungle before!" Scar asked, confused.

"I think this is _that Jungle_. And it's entirely beside the point anyway. I think we're near... yes... this way!" Doc answered, before heading off into the underbrush, putting his trident away.

"Doc! Wait! Stop! What are you doing!?" Scar called, chasing after him. Doc led the two on a path through the trees that had clearly been trod before by someone with as long a stride as Doc's. Scar darted quickly behind, trying to get Doc to pretty please explain what in the name of all the Vex hold dear was going on. Despite this, Doc simply continued.

"Here we are. Someone who... can... help..." Doc trailed off as he brought the two of them to a clear patch with only one tree in it. Or, rather, what remained of one tree. It was scarred and torn, the branches snapped off and scattered around. Fungus had begun to take hold on the bark, and the few remaining leaves were wilted and brown. "No... Why?" Doc gasped, struggling to process what exactly he was looking at.

"What... what is it?"

"This was Old Jim. He was a friend in the Jungle, when nobody else was. I... he's..." Doc trailed off again, a solitary tear falling down from his face.

"Oh... I'm sorry." Scar gasped, putting a hand on Doc's shoulder to comfort him. Doc refused to look at anything, and the two stayed there, giving Doc time to mourn, until suddenly, Scar spotted something. "Hey, what's that over there?" He pointed out, nodding to some tracks on the other side of the tree.

"They're... they're Fluffy's tracks." Doc realised. "Your pet did this, Scar."

"What? No! Fluffy would never!" Scar yelled, suddenly defensive as a shadow flickered over his eyes.

"Here's your evidence!" Doc shouted in reply, gesturing wildly at the tracks.

"No! No, no, no, no, no-" Scar broke off in a choked sob, covering his ears. "Fluffy's kind, and wonderful, and he would never do that! Never!"

"Snap out of it, Scar. It did." Doc replied flatly, folding his arms.

"No..." Scar gasped.

"Get up. We're going." Doc continued, coldly.

The two followed the trail in an uneasy silence, Doc occasionally casting wary glances at Scar, who now walked with a nervous shake in his breath and step, as if something in him had been unexpectedly shattered.


	12. Accidents

_Entry number fifteen._

_Beef knows about the vines. He's promised to keep them secret, but how long will that really last? I could tell from the look on his face that he was scared of me, scared that I was becoming just like the Jungle that has hurt all of_

_Sorry to interrupt you there, BDubs, but I swear I'm not. If anything, I'm scared for you. I'm scared for everything that the Jungle is doing to you, because it makes everything that has happened to the rest of us look kinda tame. If there's anything I can do to help you with it, just tell me._

_But please, BDubs. We're the nHo. We gotta stick together. Don't suffer alone._

_Long live the nHo,  
VintageBeef._

............................

"So, this is where Iskall and Tomato Yoshi are, then?" Ren asked, looking at the Jungle with a hesitant tremble in his voice. The trees reached so high they could probably easily beat out Scara for height, and the shadows beneath them looked less than inviting. The vines dangling down from them looked concerningly like the one that had tried to drag him away, ready to entangle, to trap, to consume. He swallowed nervously.

"Well..." Cub gestured at the incredibly helpful glowing line of Vex Magic that had led them here so far. As if on cue, it fizzled, sparked, and vanished. This cause Cub to wince, as if he’d gotten a sudden headache, but when Ren asked him about it, Cub dismissed it as a routine risk.

"How convenient. The thing that is helping us vanishes the moment the real stuff begins." Ren sighed. "It's almost like the universe is out to get us." He then shut up, because he realised he was getting dangerously close to the fourth wall, even for a YouTuber.

With that, the two Hermits entered the Jungle.

———

Flash forward no more than ten minutes, and Cub and Ren were already running, very quickly, in a direction which could be best described as either "away" or, if that failed, described via loud, incomprehensible screaming. When asked in the future, neither would ever say anything about the experience that had caused such a panicked flight, only that running away was the only thing anyone sane would do in that situation.

Eventually, the two got far enough away to pause for breath. Cub turned, and noticed a trail of blood following them. After checking himself over for injuries, he turned to Ren, and saw the other cradling his arm, which had a nasty gash on it.

"What happened?" Cub asked, quickly checking his inventory for a healing potion, but he was clean out.

"It got me. I'd've healed it, but I'm out of healing." Ren answered.

"We've been hit that hard, huh?" Cub realised.

"Yep."

Cub paused for a moment, then came up with a temporary solution. He removed the scarf that Grian had given him as part of the Sherlock getup, and carefully wrapped it around the wound to stem the bleeding, at least for now. They'd need to get their hands on more healing potions soon, somehow.

"We've gotten ourselves into quite the situation, huh?"

"Wow. You really are Cubfan Holmes." Ren snarked, deadpan.

The two turned, and then continued, deeper into the jungle, away from the horror that they had faced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, you don’t get to know what they were running from. Nobody gets to know what they were running from. It shall be a secret forever.


	13. Campout

Night was on the brink of falling, with the sun just barely visible through the trees as starting to vanish below the horizon. Keralis had set up a makeshift tent with carpets draped between trees, with a seat outside for whoever would be keeping watch. They didn't think anything would attack them, but precautions were precautions, and it was the only way Keralis could convince BDubs to take any kind of break.

Keralis had the first watch, and so was sat outside, contemplatively eating a golden carrot. He peered out into the Jungle beyond as the shadows grew deeper and darker. Occasionally he'd hear a twig snap, or what sounded like a voice, but since nothing further happened he dismissed it as simply hearing things.

Fairly late in the night, when the moonlight was filtering down through the trees, Keralis heard a rustling noise in the underbrush. He initially dismissed it as he had with everything else, until he realised that it was getting closer, and speeding up. Carefully, he drew his sword, and made his way towards the direction of the source of the noise.

Something that appeared to be a snake slowly crawled over his feet, heading for the tent. Keralis leapt back and cleanly cut it in two with the sword. He bent over to see what kind of snake it was, and found... a vine? He noticed that more were coming out of the undergrowth now, and he hacked and slashed at them.

There seemed to be an infinite number of the things, however, and they were rushing towards the tent, rushing towards BDubs. Keralis kept valiantly fighting, but he couldn't keep up with only his sword. He grunted, and tossed said blade to the side.

"That's it. Nobody hurts Bubbles." He muttered to himself. With that, something happened. His eyes glowed bright blue, and an arc of magic leapt from his hands, zapping each and every vine and causing it to almost instantly wither and die. He heard more rustling, and whipped his head around to face it, his face a picture of outrage. He raised his hand again threateningly, and it seemed that the Jungle got the message. The rustling continued, but it got further and further away, like it was running. 

Keralis let out a sigh of relief, and pulled his sword out of the ground, stashing it in his inventory. He collapsed against the wall of the tent, mentally and physically exhausted from the ordeal. Looking out, although he would, if asked later, attribute it to exhaustion, it seemed that the whole Jungle was edging slowly away from him, absolutely terrified. A few hours later, BDubs awoke, and switched places with Keralis. 

"Anything happen?" He asked.

"Nothing much." Keralis lied, going under the makeshift shelter. He collapsed on the bed, and fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. He fell into an uneasy slumber, dreams filled with confused images of the battle. The rest of the night continued with little to no event, at least as far as BDubs reported once the morning came.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Keralis is an ancient eldritch entity of an as yet unspecified variety in this, what’s your point?


	14. Rescue

_Entry Number 20_

_The vines are taking over. They're uncomfortable, and hard to hide. I don't know what to do anymore. The Jungle has claimed me for its own, and despite my fighting, I can't stop it. I tried to cut one of the vines. It hurt. It hurt so much, like I'd cut off my own arm or something. I'm **not** gonna try it again._

_Hey, at least I still have Etho, and Beef, and Doc, right?_

_**Right?** _

_Long live the nHo,  
BDoubleO100_

_———_

_Entry number 21_

_Etho and Doc got into a fight, I don't know about what. It was scary, seeing Etho of all people lose his cool. Is the nHo falling apart? We have to stay together, right? This Jungle... it's thrown a spanner in everything, but I still think we should stay friends. I can't imagine a future where, say, Doc and I are constantly bickering like bad neighbors._

_I feel like something bad is about to happen._

_Long live the nHo?  
BDoubleO100_

...........................

Cub gasped as he stepped on the skull of some kind of bird. Clearly there was a dangerous predator around these parts: he and Ren shouldn't stick around for long. He looked around. The tree directly above them seemed weird, too, with more of those strange vines hanging from it.

Cub rolled his neck: his scarf was sitting funny, and it was starting to chafe. He paused, and reached up to adjust it, just as Ren walked past. Cub looked up, and his eye was drawn to the scarf wrapped around Ren's arm as a makeshift bandage — wait. If Cub's scarf was wrapped around Ren's arm, then what was around his neck?

Cub suddenly went very pale. He scrabbled at whatever it was, trying to pull himself free. He soon realised what it was - vines. He realised this because they began to grow over his hands. Cub struggled even more, beginning to panic, but the vines just grew tighter. Ren turned around, confused, and gasped when he saw Cub.

Ren ran over to help, but as he was trying to pull Cub free, another vine wrapped itself around his chest. Ren yelled and struggled, until he suddenly came to another realisation. The realisation was that his feet were suddenly not touching the ground. Cub had gone into a full panic, meanwhile, and had stopped doing anything productive.

Cub's vision was tunnelling, he couldn't think, couldn't hear anything over the rush of blood in his ears. He was convinced that he was going to die, and was honestly terrified. Suddenly, a thought floated to the front of confusion — fight. He had to fight whatever was trying to kill him. Before he fully knew what was going on, his hands were crackling with arcane power.

He slashed at the vines that held him, until he was free. He then realised that he had been several blocks off the ground, and the vines had been the only thing supporting him. And he was now travelling very quickly in a downward direction. Desperately, he made the rather foolish decision of putting a hand out to break his fall.

Next thing he knew, he was flat on the Jungle floor, screaming in pain, and his arm hurt so much. He rolled off of it, gasping. Ren. He had to help Ren. He began to weakly cast a spell that would cut Ren loose and land him safely, but the movement required for it caused waves of pain to run up his arm. Giving up on that, he went for the next best solution. More panicked screaming.

———

When Doc woke up, dawn was breaking over the Jungle. Flowers opened, animals awoke, things no sane person should bear witness to screeched into the void... a typical morning, in other words. Doc woke up with the sun as well, putting together the duo's travelling gear while Scar was still asleep. Doc let him have his rest. The argument the previous afternoon had messed them both up, and the guy surely needed his rest.

"No... stop..." Doc suddenly heard Scar's voice call out. "Stop!" Doc looked over to where Scar was. He was tossing and turning wildly, clearly scared. Doc rushed over to Scar's side, shaking him awake.

"Scar, wake up. It's just a nightmare. Scar!" He whispered. Scar groggily came to, then gasped, and scuttled away from Doc.

"You leave him alone!" Scar muttered accusingly.

"Scar. It was just a nightmare. I'd never hurt Cub, you know that." Doc reasoned, reaching out. He assumed that Scar was talking about Cub, since the alternative... well, Doc wasn’t willing to acknowledge it.

"I... guess..." Scar supposed as he recovered.

Soon, Scar had got the last of his things together, and they moved on through the Jungle. Stumbling across the tracks of some large creature, they began to follow it. It soon proved to not match up with Fluffy, but it was the best lead they had towards anything. The track led them towards a point where it met up with the trails of two smaller entities, which, from the appearance of things, fled. As they continued, Scar knelt down beside a plant, looking at one leaf concernedly.

"That's human blood." He realised, pointing at the spatters that had fallen on it. The two continued, spotting more of a trail of blood, until they realised that they were following the two smaller entities — probably people. The trail suddenly seemed fresher at one point, after the blood stopped. The two people had probably rested, and dressed their wounds.

Doc and Scar continued down the trail, hurrying as they began to hear voices getting closer as they followed. As they realised that is was someone calling desperately for help, they broke into a run, Doc's long strides and Scar's magically-boosted speed covering an immense amount of ground. Eventually, they got near enough that they could tell who was calling for help: Cub was yelling for Ren, and by the sounds of things they were both in danger.

"Hang on, Cub." Scar muttered under his breath, grabbing Doc's arm and casting a teleportation spell. The two materialised about a hundred meters ahead of where they had been, disorienting Doc. Scar saw Cub collapsed on the ground, horribly bruised, and rushed to his side. Cub weakly pointed up, and the two Area 77 officials looked there, to see Ren hanging limply in a bunch of strangling vines.

———

"Don't worry, I got this." Scar assured Cub. He then teleported up into the tree, magically cut Ren loose, teleported to catch Ren, then teleported the both of them to the ground, before teleporting somewhere else and returning with two healing potions, the old tension-killers, which he gave to each of them.

"Uggh... my head..." He groaned once it was all done, looking around dazedly.

"Scar? Scar!" Cub yelled, standing up after drinking his potion. He caught Scar as the latter collapsed.

"I think I've lost my sense of direction... bit dizzy... just need to lie down..." Scar replied, slumping out of Cub's arms to the ground. Doc and Ren rushed over, concerned.

"He's just teleportation-sick. He'll be fine in an hour or so." Cub assured. "Once he's up, we should move in case this tree tries to get us again."

"Once he's up?" Doc replied, picking Scar up bridal-style.

"Ha, ha." Scar remarked, still half out of it. The quartet continued on through the Jungle, in a straight line so as to not mess up Scar even more. Eventually, they came to a clearing, and they set up camp while Scar recovered.

"Oh, humans!" A voice suddenly called out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, this chapter is a two-in-one, because of some minor changes I’ve made in my formatting when transferring this over making the old layout incomprehensible.


	15. Rage

"What, are you calling me a monster!?" Keralis joked, elbowing BDubs lightheartedly.

"No, I'm just saying that the monsters," BDubs gestured to the Jungle around them, "Seem scared of you."

"Yeah, well, they should! Grr! Don’t hurt my Bubbles!" Keralis chuckled, miming a punch towards a nearby vine.

"NO DON'T TOUCH THAT!" BDubs yelled, pulling Keralis away. "That vine is... dangerous."

"Hm?" Keralis made an intrigued noise.

"It's like poison oak, but it makes you angry instead of giving you a rash." BDubs explained. “Don’t ask how or why. It’s probably magic.”

"Ah. I see." Keralis nodded, understanding, and made a few steps to put some distance between the vines and himself.

"Wait Keralis, look out-!" BDubs yelled, reaching out. He'd spotted a small stone, which was right in Keralis' backing-up trajectory, in a prime spot to trip him up. But the warning was ever so slightly too late.

"Wha-" Keralis began, before suddenly falling. Keralis had tripped on the stone, and went tumbling into a ditch full of the vines. He let out a squawk, and began to struggle, constantly getting brushed by the vines. Keralis roughly pulled himself out, ending up a bit disheveled. He pulled a branch of the stuff out of his hair, smoothing it down, before uncomfortably rubbing his left arm.

"What, no help?" He asked, his tone somewhere between joking and genuine annoyance.

"I didn't want to get it myself. Two people affected by the stuff could destroy each other, and/or everyone else." Bdubs cautiously explained, trying to not set Keralis off. This attempt failed.

"So you were just willing to let me get hurt!?" Keralis yelled, getting up in BDubs' face, suddenly not sounding like fun, lovable Keralis anymore. There was a stale crackle in the air, like some sort of energy was building up. "What kind of friend does that!?" The wind picked up, swirling the leaves around. A blue nimbus appeared around Keralis' feet, lifting him up slightly off the ground. Bolts of magic danced around the pair, creating a kind of cage. His eyes began to glow brightly, and his voice picked up an echo, a halo of blue magic crowning his head. "Well, tell me, _Bubbles_! What kind of friend does that!?"

BDubs gulped slightly, and took a step back, with the expression of a deer caught in headlights. He'd never seen Keralis like this before. Keralis pursued, continuing his tirade to the point of being practically unintelligible. Gently, ever so gently, BDubs reached out and put a hand on Keralis' shoulder. Keralis yelled, and let loose a blast of pure, unadulterated arcane power.

BDubs’ face burned; the blast had cut right across his cheek. He stumbled backwards from the sheer force of the thing, letting out a cry. From the stumble, he lost his balance and fell to the ground, clutching where the spell had made its impact. Slowly, he began to sob, the pain overwhelming him and every tear running across the wound making it burn more.

Seeing BDubs like this caused something to click in Keralis. The storm died down as he lightly fell to the ground, horrified at what he'd done. He took a gentle step towards BDubs, before catching the fear in his friend's eye. He halted, shocked. He'd done that. After all of his effort to protect him, he'd be the one who'd hurt Bubbles.

"Sorry." He gasped, backing up. "I'm so, so sorry." And with that, he turned on his heel and fled deeper into the Jungle. BDubs gasped, and ran after him, but Keralis was too fast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realised, without the information from my actual Keralis headcanons, you’re all probably thinking of some other entity.  
> Well, since I probably won’t crosspost the fics where those headcanons actually matter, you can go on thinking that.


	16. Julia

_Entry number 22_

_NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO_

_———_

_Entry number 23_

_I'll start with the bad news. So, in the morning, Doc and I woke up, and the base was oddly quiet. Usually, Etho and Beef would be up and about, or snoring up a storm. Today? They weren't. We looked around, and they weren't there. So we moved out further into the Jungle, but there was no sign of them. I think it got them._

_And that brings me on to the worse news. Whilst we were looking for Etho and Beef, my sleeve shifted, and Doc saw one of the vines. He flipped out on me, accusing me of being a "traitor", and a "servant of the Jungle"... he all-out lost it on me. After that, he stormed off, and I haven't been able to find him since._

_It's been a few days since then; I've only now recovered enough to get my thoughts coherently on paper. The loneliness is getting to me, though: I could've sworn one of the trees said hi._

_Long live... I don't know anymore.  
BDoubleO100_

.......................

"Who said that!?" Cub yelled, hands suddenly crackling with a nimbus of vex magic. Ren drew his sword, baring his teeth, but Doc only seemed mildly surprised.

"Oh, sorry," the voice giggled. "I forgot that I'm kinda... unusual."

"What does that mean?" Ren yelled, dashing towards the direction it had come from, but all he found was a tree.

"It means that, for one, I'm right in front of you." The voice explained.

"So... you're invisible?" Ren guessed. Doc could barely stifle a chuckle.

"Nope! Try again!" The voice laughed in a lilting, natural tone.

"You're lying? A lying ventriloquist?" Cub tried, even more confused.

"What about you, Doc?" The voice asked. "What do you think?"

"You're the tree, aren't you... Julia, is it? Old Jim mentioned you a couple times."

"Correctamundo!" The voice - er - Julia laughed. "Speaking of him, how is he?" Doc was conspicuously silent. "Oh. That bad, huh?" Doc nodded sadly. A few leaves turned red and drifted down, one landing on Doc's shoulder like a comforting hand.

"Well, do you mind if we set up camp in this clearing?" Cub asked. "Our friend Scar is kinda sick, and-"

"Of course you can stay here! I haven't had anyone to talk to in ages! Not since the other guy left!" Julia laughed. For all that the Jungle seemed bleak, she was a happy-go-lucky soul. That is, if trees have souls. Do trees have souls? How is anyone supposed to know? Perhaps that is one of the great mysteries of life.

As night began to fall, Cub set up some warding spells around the camp so that they wouldn't get attacked. Scar offered him what little magical aid could muster, being able to stand and walk about but still occasionally having incredible dizzy spells. Doc put up a makeshift tent, while Ren gathered leaves to make what would serve as mattresses.

After that, the four - sorry, five - of them sat down together and talked, swapping stories about how they got here, and what their adventures in the Jungle had been like. Ren and Cub were especially interested in, and concerned by, the flowers, which Julia helpfully explained. What concerned Cub most, however, was the matter of Fluffy.

"You were supposed to kill it, Scar!" Cub groaned, facepalming.

"I couldn't! He was just... so... I couldn't bring myself to hurt 'im!" Scar protested, too dazed to think of words. A shadow flickered over his eyes fore the briefest moment as he did so.

"That thing is what killed..." Doc trailed off, tears definitely not welling in his eye. "Do you think Iskall's okay?" He asked Cub, changing the topic. Another leaf landed on his shoulder.

The four hermits and the tree talked late into the night, until even Doc somehow got tired. One by one, the hermits fell asleep, until the only one who was awake was Scar, thanks to a splitting headache. He settled down and tried to get to sleep, but couldn't. Even if he could ignore the pain in his head, the Jungle seemed oddly loud. He kept on hearing movement, and twigs snapping. Eventually, however, he was able to shut it out, and get to sleep, not even thinking to wonder what had made those noises.


	17. Possessive

_Entry number 25_

_The Jungle is finally starting to get to me. I don't know what's happening, but time has become a haze. I used to update this journal once a day, but I think it's been weeks. I don't know. The sun and moon travel at whatever rates they want. It's weird._

_Out of curiosity, I had a conversation with that tree I mentioned a couple entries ago. We talked about a lot, too much to recount here. She said her name was Julia. I think I'm gonna talk to her some more: it's nice to know that I'm not the only sentient entity in this Jungle._

_Long live... yeah, I don't know what to put here.  
BDouble0100_

......................

The dawn broke over the horizon, and Scar was the first to wake. He watched the reds, oranges and yellows of the sunrise filter through the dense trees. It was beautiful. Noticing that the sky was mostly red, an old saying came to him.

"Red sky in the morning," he recited aloud, "Sailors take warning."

He smiled, before hearing a rustling noise in the bushes. Startled, he went to investigate, and saw a huge creature in the shadows. It was sleek, with only a thin coating of fur. It looked kind of like a sock monkey, with a white head and hands, a bright red mouth and a gray body. Scar grinned, overcome with euphoria, and ran to the thing.

"Fluffy!" He gasped. "I missed you so much!" He laughed. The monster, Fluffy, seemed to mimic his smile, creating a twisted reflection. It gently cradled Scar's head in its huge claw, caressing his hair and knocking his hat off. It brought its head down to the same level as Scar's, using its claw to hold Scar's head so that he was looking directly into its eyes.

That was about the point where Scar realised that something was very dreadfully wrong. He began to struggle, but Fluffy's claw held him too tightly. He tried to scream, to let out a cry for help, but his voice box refused to cooperate. He was forced to hold still, and look into Fluffy's eyes. And when he looked away, it wasn't his choice. His legs walked him back to camp, and he sat on his leaf-mattress, quickly shooting Julia a very meaningful (and scary) look. Nothing would be said about this, or else.

———

Ren was the next to wake. He sat up, and stretched, giving Scar a little wave. Scar waved back, but something seemed... unnatural about it. Ren shrugged; it was probably just his head playing tricks on him. The jungle (and the near-constant threat of death around every corner) had made them all go a little bit loopy.

"You sleep well?" He asked Scar.

"Nah, I had pretty bad nightmares." Scar replied. "Doc tried to kill Fluffy. That's the second time I've had that nightmare."

"I mean-" Julia began, but she was cut off by an aside glance from Scar. "Nevermind. It's not important." Before Ren could question what just went down, the other two woke up. Soon, the four Hermits began packing their things to set out for the day. Doc went to take the tent down, but Julia called out to him. 

"Wait!" She said. "I'll look after the camp. I don't think the solutions to your problems are too far from here." Scar raised his eyebrow at her and she quickly shut up.

"Well, if you're sure." Doc agreed. With that, the four set out. Soon after they got out of Cub's wards, Scar gasped and bent down. Quickly waving Doc over, he pointed to the footprints on the ground.

"These are Fluffy's footprints!" He called. Excited, the others gathered around. They led off in a very clear direction, in which they moved. Maybe today they'd find him, as long as they didn't stray off the path. A couple minutes along, Scar stopped, spotting a change of direction from Fluffy. This continued for quite some time, with no breaks except for the odd turn. The whole time, Scar was otherwise silent.

"You alright, Scar?" Doc asked. "No rants about pandas today?"

"No." Scar chuckled twice, a chuckle that didn’t quite sound like it belonged to him. "No rants." 

A worried frown appeared on Cub's face, but the four continued anyway.


	18. Healing

Keralis ran, and he kept running, no matter how out-of-breath he got. He destroyed any plants that got in his way. Confused and angry and scared thoughts ran through his head, driving him into a fugue, his mind telling him that he'd hurt Bubbles, that he was a monster, that he didn't deserve any of the friendship he'd found. Choking sobs began building up in this throat, but he forced them down. And he kept running.

Some minutes and much running later, he stubbed his toe on something, and tripped over. He stayed down, deflated and unmotivated to get up. Tears began to well up in his eyes, and splashed onto the ground, the sobs finally forcing themselves out. Seemingly an eternity passed, with Keralis just lying there, crying.

Suddenly, there was a cracking noise, a snapping of a twig. Keralis rolled over, alarmed. Something was coming, maybe some kind of horrifying monster that lived in the Jungle. Maybe his breakdown had convinced the Jungle that he wasn't that scary after all. Scared, he started to clamber to his feet, when he saw the silhouette of the thing approaching — a person. BDubs.

Keralis gasped, and made to run again, but tripped over his feet. Sighing, he stayed there, closing his eyes and bracing himself for the tirade. It didn't come. Instead, he felt warm arms wrapping around him, a hand running gently through his hair. Scared, he tried to pull out of the hug.

"Keralis, wait. It's okay. You're okay." BDubs reassured him, gently resting a comforting hand on Keralis' shoulder.

"But... I hurt you... I'm-I'm-I'm a monster..." Keralis gasped in denial, shoving BDubs' hand off his shoulder.

"No. You're not. You're not a monster, you never have been, and you never will be. You weren't in control of your actions there." BDubs asserted, looking Keralis dead in the eye. Keralis relented, hugging BDubs tightly. BDubs hugged back, giving Keralis a shoulder to cry on. The tears falling from Keralis' eyes soaked through the sleeve of BDubs' shirt, but they weren't falling as quickly now.

Eventually, Keralis pulled out of the hug, a weak smile on his face. BDubs moved to sit beside him, ready to comfort Keralis again if he needed it. Keralis gently rested his head in the crook of BDubs' neck, his hair brushing against BDubs’ injured cheek. BDubs gasped, startled by the renewed pain in that area. Immediately, Keralis was fussing over him, looking at the injury.

"I can heal it, I think." Keralis suggested, bringing up a bit of magic that glowed more softly than usual. BDubs nodded, and Keralis gently brought the healing spell to the injury. He couldn't get it to heal all the way, however, and it still left behind a nasty scar. "Sorry. I did my best. I've never been that good at healing." He admitted, once it was done.

"It's alright." BDubs reassured him. "It doesn't hurt anymore."

The two sat there for a while longer, just enjoying each others' company. Eventually, the two got up, and began moving towards the coordinates. It turned out that Keralis' little run had brought the pair much closer to their destination, much sooner than expected. So everything was going great. BDubs was even tempted to voice how nothing could go wrong. He didn't, but fate heard him anyway, because fate is horrible like that.

There was the screeching of a bird from above. Alarmed, BDubs looked up, then swore under his breath in a very uncharacteristic manner, shutting his eyes very, very tightly.


	19. Fluffy

_Entry number_

_I was attacked by some kind of... sock monkey. This place just keeps getting weirder, I swear. On the off-chance that I'll ever be seen again, that someone will read this diary, don't worry: I'm just a bit scratched up._

_I don't like the Jungle. Or maybe I do. I don't know. My head hurts. I'm having thoughts that aren't mine._

_I'm scared._

_Long live the Jungle,  
BDoubleO100_

..................................

"Are you sure you're okay, Scar?" Cub asked, wringing his hand nervously. "You've been acting weird."

"I'm fine." Scar asserted. "I'm just recovering from yesterday." Scar's grey eyes pierced Cub's Vex-blue ones — wait. Scar didn't have grey eyes. His eyes were usually a vivid green. Cub let out a little gasp.

Before he could process that information fully, however, the quartet of Hermits found themselves led to a large clearing, with blood-red leaves on the ground. Tenuously, Doc picked one up, before comparing it to the trees above. He released the leaf in shock, allowing it to spin gently to the ground. The staining of the leaves wasn't natural. The four of them were in grave danger.

A soft growling came from the trees around them, and a thin, un-scar-like smirk appeared on Scar's face. Doc and Ren carefully backed away, grabbing each other's hands for security, an 'I'm here and you're too' message, if you will. Cub stepped forward, reaching out to Scar. Scar just stepped aside.

Before anything else could happen, a huge monster came crashing down out of the trees, pacing around the four, herding them in. Doc and Ren were forced back towards Cub and Scar, and the four were driven to the center of the clearing. Suddenly, Doc got out his trident, and threw it at the creature. Before his trident had even returned to his hand, he was hit in the back by a blast of Vex magic.

"Don't. Hurt. Fluffy." Scar insisted, sharply. "He doesn't want to hurt us!"

"Are you sure about that, Scar? It is pacing ominously around us in a bloodstained clearing. I get the strong feeling that I'm about to be hurt." Cub reasoned.

"Also, the way out is closing." Ren helpfully added, gesturing towards the edges of the clearing.

Cub and Doc looked around, and sure enough, the gaps in the trees around them were quickly being filled with vines. Ren and Doc bolted away from Fluffy, trying to get out of the clearing before they were trapped. Cub tried to follow, but Scar grabbed on to his arm. He yelled, and tried to pull free.

Doc and Ren reached the edge of the clearing with some time to spare. They turned around, and saw Cub struggling with Scar. He looked up at them, and waved for them to go on. Ren began to protest, but Doc nodded, and the two left the clearing, running to who-knows-where in the Jungle.

Cub then turned back to Scar, and asked, simply and plainly: "Let me go." Scar, of course, refused. Cub took a deep breath, thought about things for a second, and then began to speak.

"Of course you wouldn't let me go. You're not Scar, are you? You haven't been since this morning. I don't know exactly what happened to you, but I can guess. I hope you're still in there somewhere, Scar. And as for you," he turned to Fluffy, "You let my friend go right this instant, or there will be consequences."

In response, Scar just laughed. It started off as something almost like his characteristic chuckle, before devolving into something more wild, more animalistic.

"Oh, thank you so much, Cubby. I'm glad I don't have to keep up the front anymore." He chuckled. "You've made my job so much easier."

"What-" Cub protested, before being abruptly cut off by an attack from Scar. Scar quickly grabbed Cub's hands and brought them behind Cub's back so Cub couldn't use his magic. He then turned Cub to face Fluffy, a sadistic grin tracing the faces of both man and monster.

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day," Scar hissed in Cub's ear. What little colour there was left in Cub's face quickly drained away. However, Cub didn't struggle. He closed his eyes, and stood up straight, facing death with dignity.

A second passed, then he opened one eye, muttered a quick apology, and stomped on Scar's foot with all of his strength.


	20. Happenstance

_Entry number._

_The vines won't stop growing. I keep having to pull one away from my mouth every time I try to speak to Julia. I don't know what to do, Julia doesn't know what to do, nobody else is offering up any ideas._

_I bet Etho would know. Or Doc. But they're gone now, and there's no changing that. I miss them. I miss them so much that it hurts to think about them. I don't tell anyone, not even Julia, but it's eating me from the inside, even more than the Jungle itself is._

_How much longer until I'm gone, too?_

_Long live the Jungle,  
BDoubleO100_

..............................

Eventually, Doc and Ren got far enough away from the clearing that they considered it safe to pause for breath, even if only for a moment. After the two recovered, they looked around, trying to place where they were. Concerningly, given that Doc was familiar with the Jungle, they both came up empty.

"Well, surely if we retrace our steps, we can get back to camp." Ren suggested.

"In normal space, sure." Doc dryly replied, shutting down Ren's plan quicker than it even got started.

The two wandered aimlessly for a bit, hoping the Jungle would be kind enough to give them a path back to camp. Doc scoffed at this idea, naturally: he'd experienced travel in the Jungle, but Ren cited their two groups meeting as proof of the Jungle being at least somewhat on their side this time around.

Mere seconds after that debate was resolved by Doc (huffily) acquiescing, Ren almost tripped over something. Something wrapped in vines, and half in the undergrowth. Curious, Doc looked in the bushes, and found what amounted to a vine-mummy. Concerned, he pulled the vines off the top of the head, and uncovered a mop of medium-brown hair. 

He and Ren worked to uncover the rest of the head, soon revealing a face that both knew too well, unconscious and barely breathing: Iskall. Doc gasped, and quickly dug through his inventory, pulling out something very precious indeed: the group's last healing potion.

"Cub, Scar, wherever you are," he muttered to himself, giving it to Iskall, "I hope you don't need any healing."

With that, Iskall slowly woke up, their organic eye fluttering open and their cybernetic one fading on. They looked at the other two, dazed, then, slowly pulling themself out of the cocoon, asked:

"What... just happened?"

Ren gave no reply, but pulled them into a relieved hug. Doc initally held back, but Ren beckoned him in too. No words needed to be exchanged to show how relieved Doc and Ren were that Iskall was, if barely, alive. Carefully, the two helped them get back up on their feet, and the trio began to try and find their way back.

"See, the Jungle is on our side!" Ren affirmed.

"Then... why kidnap me in the first place?" Iskall asked. Ren was conspicuously silent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Jungle :))) is on your side :)


	21. Birds

There was the screeching of a bird from above. Alarmed, BDubs looked up, then swore under his breath in a very uncharacteristic manner, shutting his eyes very, very tightly.

"Bubbles?" Keralis asked, concerned. He looked up where BDubs had, and saw the silhouette of a bird circling. It was odd behaviour for a parrot, sure, but that wasn't enough to prompt BDubs' reaction. Instead of giving a verbal response, BDubs just covered Keralis' eyes with his hands.

"Bubbles- what-" Keralis protested, trying to swipe BDubs hands away.

"Close your eyes!" BDubs quietly urged. Keralis sighed, and obliged. BDubs carefully removed his hands.

"Now will you explain what is going on, Bubbles?" Keralis half-shouted.

"Shhh! It'll hear you!" BDubs cautioned. "That's not a parrot up there. I'm not sure what it is, but let's just say that from my last encounter with that kind of bird, I'm very lucky that I have a left eye right now. Healing potions are amazing." Keralis winced, realising how close he'd come to putting the two in danger. "We just need to keep our eyes shut and wait for the danger to pass."

"Right." Keralis agreed. "Shouldn't be too hard."

"You just had to tempt fate, didn't you." BDubs muttered, before shutting up.

The two stood there, as still and silent as possible, for quite a while, until it seemed impossible that the bird would still be there. Cautiously, ever so cautiously, BDubs opened one eye, tilting his head up. He slammed that eye back shut the moment he'd processed what he'd seen, but it was too late. A horrific cawing, screeching cacophony broke through the air, and the sound of dozens of pairs of wings flapping to gain speed in a dive met BDubs and Keralis' ears.

BDubs snapped his eyes open, telling Keralis to do the same, then grabbed Keralis' hand and dragged them both out of there. The flock of birds followed them, making a racket at first, but it was soon drowned out by the duo's heavy breathing, pounding heartbeats, and the blood rushing through their ears. The two had to keep running, they had to get away no matter what, stopping for nothing.

Well, until the two ran into a dead end of densely packed trees. The two came screeching to a halt, turning to see the birds bearing down on them. They were slowly backed into the wall of plant life behind them, until one of the birds attacked. It dove down at Keralis' face, but he quickly batted it off. If flapped back to the flock.

Making full use of the brief respite, Keralis looked around. It seemed like there was no escape — wait. To his left, there was a break in the trees, big enough for someone to squeeze through. He went to reach out to BDubs, before realising that BDubs already had his hand wrapped rather firmly around Keralis'. A soft smile appeared on Keralis' face at this sight, before he made a break for the gap in the trees, dragging BDubs along with him.

Keralis ran, and ran some more, occasionally slowing down to make sure he hadn't lost BDubs. However, they both eventually ran out of breath, collapsing against a tree. BDubs was very confused about what had just happened, and Keralis quickly explained how he'd gotten the duo out of there. BDubs looked around at that: the birds were gone. The two walked on a little further, until they came to a large tree, taller than any of the other trees in the Jungle.

Keralis quickly brought up his coordinates, and they confirmed his suspicions.

"Whether through luck or... something else, we found your coords, Bubbles." He smiled. "Your nightmares were leading us to this tree."

"We're here?" BDubs gasped.

"We're here."


	22. Duel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Conlang translation in the end notes :)

_Entry Number_

_I almost lost an eye today! Fun!_

_I was attacked by a couple of these weird birds, they chased me all over the Jungle. Eventually one cornered me, and... I'll spare you the details. Let's just say that healing potions are miracle workers, and this Jungle will never run out of interesting ways to horrify me._

_**Long live the Jungle,**  
BDoubleO100_

...................................

Startled by Cub stomping on his foot, Scar let Cub go. Cub instantly made a break for it, putting some distance between himself and Fluffy. Fluffy seemed to prepare to charge at Cub, until the crackle of dangerous, weaponised magic began to crackle around Cub's hand. Fluffy backed down, growling, and gestured with its head towards Cub. Scar seemed to understand this, and prepared to cast his own spell.

Cub and Scar stared each other down, Cub desperately looking for some sign of his friend, Scar scanning Cub for a moment of weakness. Cub didn't find what he was looking for, but Scar did. An inhuman grin appeared on his face again, and Scar let the spell loose, blasting Cub with a terrifying onslaught of magic. If it hadn't been the kind of magic that already had taken residence in Cub's veins, Cub would have been killed.

As things were, Cub was blasted across the clearing, severely burned but alive. He landed against a tree, hearing a sickening crack. He hoped that it didn't mean anything important had been damaged. Scar crossed the clearing, coming towards Cub, and he began to try and get back up on his feet. However, every little movement that Cub made burned, so he had to give up once he'd propped himself up a bit more.

Scar summoned up the same spell again, and Cub knew that if that spell were to go off, he wouldn't be able to survive this time around. He swallowed nervously, bringing up a weak, flickering shield that he knew would not be able to withstand the onslaught. Still, the illusion of safety was enough to prevent him from losing his composure.

"Scar..." He weakly called out. Scar made to release the energy, but something held him back from dealing the final blow. "Scar, please." A tear ran down Cub's face, stinging the burn wounds it ran over. "Don't hurt me."

Scar shook his head, trying to rid himself of the thoughts that plagued his head, all of the good memories of Cub. He succeeded in dismissing them, and brought back the spell, since it had ebbed away in his moment of weakness. Part of him screamed out: why was he doing this? He wasn't in control. He needed to break... he needed to... he needed to get rid of these pesky thoughts, these wrong thoughts.

Cub saw Scar's expression flicker, for the slightest moment, to one of kindness, the smile that he knew belonged to Scar, and he felt slightly more reassured. His spirits didn't stay high, however, because Scar brought the spell up, stronger than ever, and got ready to fire. Cub pushed all of his power into the shield, desperately trying to survive the blast.

And Scar let the spell loose. The blast struck Cub's shield, and it instantly began to falter. But it bought Cub time. His injuries protesting, Cub dove to the side, out of the way of the blast, just before the shield came crashing down, incinerating the spot where he had been mere moments before.

Scar growled, not bothering to use magic because he knew Cub would escape again. He drew his sword, raising it above his head. Cub's thought ran at the speed of light, trying to figure out a way out of this. He needed to shake Scar's psyche, get Scar to snap out of it. But he didn't know how. He watched, helpless, as Scar brought the sword down. Out of fear or desperation or something, an idea struck Cub: a last resort.

"Scarel! Perim!" He called out, his voice shifting to the more lilting tone it took on whenever he spoke the language of the Vex. He figured it probably hadn't worked, but oh well. It didn't hurt to try. He braced himself for the end.

An end that didn't come.

Cub carefully opened one eye, and saw the sword balanced precariously over his face, held in Scar's trembling hand. Cub met Scar's eyes, and saw a spark of green trying to emerge from their blank grey.

"Scarel, tinam ve." He continued, gently. "Rash obtesh xit i'acod. Izquoly min toshe jar i'stagedy." He took a deep, gasping breath, and looked Scar dead in the eye. "Nathim ter rash."

Slowly, Scar moved his sword away from Cub's face.

"V... ve min w-willet jar liora iva." He stammered out, his voice trembling, as if every syllable was a battle.

"Abet ve tot roit?" Cub asked, sitting up.

"I-iva hap tom roit." Scar admitted. With that, the usual green blossomed in his eyes, a serious expression crossing his face. Still shaking, fighting for every movement, he turned on Fluffy. "You-you've been controlling me all season, haven't you!?" He yelled at the monster, his sword glowing with an aura of pure, untainted, chaotic magic. "How dare you."

And with that, he charged. He struck blow after blow on Fluffy, screaming in rage, until the beast dropped to the ground, barely alive. It growled pathetically at him, but Scar just looked it dead in the eye.

"I should have done this when Cub first asked me." Scar growled, before delivering the final blow.

With Fluffy's dying breath, it was as if a weight had been lifted from Scar's shoulders. He stopped shaking, his breathing evened out, and he visibly relaxed. He let go of the sword, trying to process what had just happened. He turned towards Cub, took a few staggered steps, then dropped to his knees, the adrenaline rushing out of his system.

Cub dragged himself to his feet, and limped the rest of the way towards Scar, every inch of his skin protesting from the pain. He sat down by Scar's side, and gently draped an arm over his friend's shoulder. Scar leaned over to Cub, tears falling down his face faster than he could wipe them away. Gasping for breath between sobs, Scar managed to get out two words that he didn't even need to say:

"I'm sorry."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I made a conlang for the language of the Vex. I was bored, and it was early Lockdown.
> 
> Translations:  
> “Scarel! Perim!” - “Scar! Stop!”  
> “Scarel, tinam ve. Rash obtesh xit i'acod. Izquoly min toshe jar i'stagedy. Nathim ter rash.” - “Scar, listen to me. It’s gotten into your head. Those aren’t your thoughts. Snap out of it.  
> “Ve min willet jar liora iva.” - “I don’t want to believe you.”  
> “Abet ve tot roit?” - “But I’m right?”  
> “Iva hap tom roit” - “You might be right.”


	23. Regroup

_Entrg_

_Entr_

_Enry_

_Entry number?_

_My head hurts. I don't know how much longer i can last._

_Help_

_Please_

_Help_

_**LONG LIVE THE JUNGLE** _

................ . . . . . .

The sun was falling scarily quickly. It wasn't sunset yet, but it would be soon. And three people were walking through the Jungle, with no idea how to get back to their camp.

"I have come to a conclusion, Docson!" A voice could be heard, one of the Ren diggity dog.

"Yes, Renson?" The Doctor in question questioned, hope sparking in his voice.

"We are... thoroughly lost." Ren deadpanned, sighing.

Iskall facepalmed. Doc and Ren gave each other sheepish looks in reply, totally stealing Zed's gimmick as they did so.

"Look, you said Cub and Scar should be nearer to your camp, right?" Iskall asked, and Doc nodded. "So... why don't we just ask them for coords, then go there?"

"Uh." Rendog pointed out. "Cub and Scar are kinda in a life-or-death situation."

"Hey! Cub! When you're NOT in a life-or-death situation, can you please send coords?" Iskall replied, miming writing the words in the air.

"They have a point." Doc shrugged.

"Great! Then it's decided!" Iskall declared, reaching for their communicator, then becoming very confused when they couldn't find it in any of their pockets.

"Oh! Right!" Ren realised, pulling Iskall's communicator out of his inventory. "You left it behind when the Jungle kidnapped you." Iskall took it with a quiet thanks, and quickly sent a private message to Cub.

> Iskall85: Hey, when you're not in a life-or-death situation, can you send us the coords for camp? Doc & Ren may or may not have gotten us lost.
> 
> Iskall85: Thanks!

The reply came almost instantly:

> Cubfan135: Wait Iskall!?
> 
> Cubfan135: You're okay!
> 
> Cubfan135: You are okay, right?
> 
> Iskall85: Yeah, I'm fine. We're just lost.
> 
> Cubfan135: Right. Coords.
> 
> Cubfan135: 7635-61-4483
> 
> Iskall85: Thanks, dude. You're a lifesaver.

"Well!" Iskall smiled, showing the others the coordinates. "We should go, if we don't want to get killed by whatever else is in here."

Doc and Iskall instantly set off in the same direction, without even bringing up coords or anything. When Ren made a faint noise of protest, the two of them just turned around, pointed at their individual cybernetic eyes. Ren sighed, slightly dejectedly, and followed, wishing he had an f5-capable cybernetic eye.

———

Finally, just as the sun was setting, Doc, Ren and Iskall got back to the camp by Julia. Cub and Scar were already there, of course. Cub was bandaging a few burn wounds on his arms, looking incredibly exhausted for some reason. Scar was sitting on his bed, staring into space, the occasional tear falling down his cheek.

While Cub brought Iskall up to speed on things, and Ren helped him tend to the last of his injuries (he'd been able to heal most of them, but it took a lot out of him), Doc sat down next to Scar. Scar looked away, unable to meet Doc's eye.

"Sorry." Scar mumbled.

"You have nothing to be sorry for." Doc assured Scar.

"But I-" Scar protested.

"You were not in control of your actions. You are completely blameless for everything that happened today." Doc interrupted. "So I don't wanna hear any apologies from you. Blaming yourself doesn't help anything. Got it?"

Scar nodded weakly. In response, Doc put an arm around Scar's shoulder, and Scar moved closer in to the hug. A faint smile appeared on his face.


	24. Destination

BDubs walked over to the tree, his face a picture of strange, distant familiarity. He walked around it, running his hand along the bark. Keralis followed after, constantly checking over his shoulder to make sure they didn't get got by something. In his hurry to make sure they weren't being followed, however, Keralis wasn't watching where he was walking, and tripped over something.

'Something', in this case, turned out to be a book. Curious, Keralis picked it up and began reading aloud.

"Entry number one." He began, causing BDubs to turn around, interested. "This is it, then." The blood drained out of BDubs' face as he realised what it was. "This is how it begins-"

"Hey! That's mine!" BDubs grabbed it out of Keralis' hands. "It was my dia- journal of what happened in here... last time."

"Oh, sorry."

BDubs opened it to the first blank page, before quickly reading the last entry. He furrowed his brow, pursing his lips.

"I don't remember writing this." He noted, before showing Keralis.

———

_Entry Number... I have no idea._

_I don't know what's happened, how long it's been since that last entry. My head's finally clear, but I don't remember what fogged it before. I woke up near some kind of giant tree, I think, at the mouth of a tunnel under the roots. For some reason, this feels like home._

_I'm writing this as I go down that tunnel. There's something at the end, there. Let me se what that is..._

_Oh cr-_

.... . . . . . . . . .

———

"Huh." Keralis remarked. "That's... hairy-scary-larry."

"Hm yeah. Wonder how this ended up up here, then." BDubs agreed.

"Well, the tunnel is right there." Keralis pointed at an incredibly convenient gap in the tree's roots. BDubs nodded and, before Keralis could stop him, dove in.

After a metre or so, the tunnel widened into something tall enough for most people, except maybe illegally tall people like Doc, Mumbo or X, to walk through comfortably. The walls were still made of dirt, and the tree's roots broke through the ceiling, but at least Keralis and BDubs didn't have to crawl. Eventually, the tunnel led them to an intricately-carved stone chamber, with a glowing orb of light in the centre.

"Wow..." BDubs gasped, looking around.

"You took longer than I would've thought." A voice said, coming from the light.

"Who... are you?" BDubs asked, confused.

"Oh. You probably don't remember me. To put it into terms you humans would understand," It explained, Keralis frowning suspiciously at it. "I am the Jungle."

"But, why did you bring me here?" BDubs asked.

"Because I need help. Ever since you left, my power's been dwindling, becoming more corrupted. You're the only one that can save me." The Jungle, or whatever this was, explained. Keralis raised an eyebrow doubtfully.

"But how do I do that?" BDubs asked.

"Just... reach into the light."

BDubs nodded, and began to walk into the center of the room. Keralis made a noise of protest, but it went unheeded. A complacent smile appeared on BDubs' face as he reached out into the light. It was warm, and it tickled his hand, like sunlight that's just slightly too intense. Every second that his hand was in contact with it, the light grew bigger, and brighter. And then something happened, to cause an expression of alarm to appear on BDubs' face.

"Keralis!" BDubs yelled, as he struggled with something, trying to pull his arm out. Vines grew up his arm, slowly turning him into some sort of weird plant-based mummy. "Keralis, help!" The pitch of his voice began to climb, rising with his panic. Keralis tried to run forward to help him, but some sort of barrier got in the way. "I think it lied!"

The vines were cocooning BDubs, even as he desperately cried for help. Turning, he saw Keralis blasting the barrier with his magic, faint red lines appearing on his skin as he started to exhaust his supply of magic. BDubs struggled with the vines, trying to pull free, trying to buy time so Keralis could come help.

But time was running out. The vines were crawling up his neck and down his left arm, having wrapped the rest of him. Keralis looked up, met BDubs' eyes, and put one last shove into the barrier, causing it to shatter and come crashing down. He ran to BDubs' side, ready to pull his friend free. BDubs reached out, he tried to get to Keralis. Keralis' fingers brushed the tips of BDubs'...

And vines prevented Keralis from reaching the rest.

"No." Keralis gasped. BDubs was entirely encased in vines, just standing there like a statue. "No. N-n-no! Bubbles!" He backed away, not fully processing. His best friend, his closest friend was... gone? Just like that? Keralis was so distracted, he didn't notice the flower that grew out of BDubs' outstretched hand, nor the cloud of pollen that it gave off, until he found himself choking, gasping for air, and falling unconscious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oopsy Daisy


	25. Nighttime

Scar couldn't sleep. Doc's words had calmed his feelings when it came to the guilt of hurting his friends, but it didn't do anything about the fear that had set into him. Every noise in the Jungle made Scar tense up a little, because what if it was Fluffy, back for revenge? Even on the odd occasion that he managed to drift off, he'd just suffer through a confused nightmare and then wake up less than ten minutes later.

He went through a couple hours like this, before deciding that his efforts were futile and that he at least ought to do something productive. He got up, and started clearing things up. He packed his own things so they'd be ready to go in the morning, then began to clean up the camp. It was as he was putting the first aid kit back together (Cub, Ren and Iskall had left it in bits) that Julia made an noise like clearing her throat.

Not bothering to wonder how a tree made a throat-clearing noise when trees don't have throats, and just attributing it to whatever magic fuelled all the other illogical bits in the jungle, Scar sighed and looked up.

"What?" He asked.

"You really should sleep. I think that's a thing that humans need, right?" Julia pointed out.

"I can't." Scar admitted. "I'm too... too scared." A leaf drifted down and landed comfortingly on his shoulder.

"You don't have to be scared of anything. I'll protect you." Julia assured him. Scar just shook his head, and kept working, muttering something about nightmares.

Still, as the night wore on, Scar grew more and more tired, his movements more and more sluggish, until eventually he passed out on the forest floor. Julia carefully dropped a blanket of leaves on him, and let him sleep, occasionally making calming noises whenever he seemed distressed by a nightmare.

At about 3am, a violent wind blew through the trees, and the ground shook. The noise woke Cub, Doc, Ren and Iskall up, and disturbed Scar's already-fitful sleep. The four looked around in alarm, trying to pinpoint the source of the disturbance. Everything in the Jungle seemed more animated, more sentient. Julia muttered something which was probably a swearword in treeish, if treeish had swearwords.

"You need to get to safety, now." She urged them. The four needed no more prompting than this. Packing was easy, thanks to Scar's clearing earlier in the night. Noticing how fitfully Scar was sleeping, they decided to not wake him, instead getting Doc to carry him again. The four fled in what they guessed was probably the direction of the Jungle's border, although by this point they really didn't have much of an idea, even Doc and Iskall.

What Iskall did notice, however, was the fact the direction the group was travelling in was slowly drifting, slowly turning, as the group manoeuvred around trees. When they voiced this concern, Ren let out a gasp as he recognised what was going on.

"We're being herded." He explained. The question now, was what exactly were they being herded to? Eventually, they came to a clearing with a tree in the middle, a tree much larger than any other tree in the Jungle. They paused, confused. Surely they'd've reached the edge of the Jungle by now, herding or no.

Before they could worry much about that, something came out from behind the tree. It was like a mummy, but made of vines. And a vine was sticking out of its hand, wrapped around an unconscious humanoid form, which was being dragged across the forest floor. Just in case, Cub brandished a spell, Ren and Iskall got out their swords, and Doc, after laying Scar against a nearby tree, got out his trident.

This attracted the vine-mummy's attention. It made a horrific screeching noise, let whoever its prisoner was go, and charged. 

Well. This wasn't how they planned the night to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enter the showdown!


	26. Showdown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is another two-in-one chapter, by the way.

Ren and Iskall rushed over to the side of the vine-creature's victim. He was recognisable as Keralis, except for the strange red markings running across his face and down his arms. Still, the duo supposed that that would have to be solved later, because right now he needed medical attention.

Ren knelt down beside Keralis, checking for vital signs. Keralis was breathing, slowly and heavily, but that was better than not. Ren was about to check Keralis for any serious open wounds when Iskall suddenly yelled: the vine-creature had made a bunch more vines crawl out from the underbrush, and they were coming for Ren. Iskall cut most of them away, but one got close enough to use its thorns to leave a gash in Ren's leg.

Iskall grit their teeth and began hacking and slashing at the attacking vines while Ren continued administering first aid. Eventually, whatever malign intelligence was fuelling the vines decided that it wasn't going to get Ren and Keralis without taking Iskall down. The vines reared up, and promptly tried to do just that.

Cub fired off another shielding spell, protecting Doc's left arm from an attacking vine, before firing off a quick heal at Ren and then zapping the creature with a spell designed to wither plants. He cast spell after spell after spell in this manner, trying to fight off the numbness in his hands, the exhaustion eating at his insides, the weight trying to force his eyes to fall shut. He had used too much magic already today, but he had to keep going.

Cub shifted his stance to be more stable, less likely to let him collapse. His heel nudged something, and he saw that he'd bumped into Scar, who until that point had somehow still not been awake. Iskall let out a yell, Cub sent them a heal. At that point he realised that Scar was slowly waking up: his little kick had probably been the final straw.

Indeed, Scar was waking up. The first thing he saw was the battle that was raging around the two, the awareness of which woke him up properly. The second thing he saw was the heavy bags under Cub's eyes, and indeed the general state Cub was in. By the time he put two and two together, Cub's focus was on the battle again.

Scar spent a moment or so processing, and then he knew what to do. He staggered to his feet, still a bit groggy and out of it himself. He walked over to Cub, and wrapped his hand around Cub's, casting a spell to pool the duo's magical power. Cub looked at Scar in surprise, and then smiled widely. And the two unleashed a no-holds-barred blast of anti-plant death at the vine monster.

The first blast only withered away the outer layer of vines, and they quickly regrew to cover whatever they were wrapped around. The second blast hit the creature's head, just as Doc went in with his trident. As such, he got a glimpse of the face under the mask of vines. It was a familiar face, and it was a terrified face, and it was BDubs' face. And then the vines grew over BDubs' face again, and Doc was left wondering if he'd just imagined it.

Thankfully, he didn't have to think about it for very long, because a large, thorny branch of something slammed into the side of his head with enough force to knock him out.

Cub and Scar saw Doc falling to the ground, and gasped in unison. They communicated wordlessly, and shifted their plan of attack. Scar continued releasing blast after blast of what would equate to magic weedkiller, while Cub shifted more of his side of the energy into making sure that Doc would recover.

The malign intelligence behind the Jungle saw the ConVex moving in unison, and figured out that they were drawing their immense power from each other, and in what was amazing deduction for an evil biome of doom, figured out that the flip side of 'stronger together' was 'weaker apart'.

Forcibly twisting BDubs' hand with the vines, it summoned up the same flower that it had used to take out Keralis, took careful aim, and knocked Cub unconscious. He slumped to the ground, his hand slipping from Scar's, causing the power bleeding through both to fade. Scar gasped, and tried everything he knew to shake Cub awake. Nothing worked.

He turned to face Cub's attacker, his eyes full of wild rage, lit by the crackle of a horribly destructive spell wrapped around his hand. He fired off blast after blast of magic, not caring how low he was running on the stuff. This stupid vine-thing had the audacity to hurt Cub, his best friend, and he would never, never stand for that of his own free will.

The vines withered away, revealing the person trapped underneath. BDubs looked at Scar, terrified and desperate, and Scar faltered. And the vines grew back over BDubs' face, and the Jungle made BDubs shove Scar back, and Scar stumbled, and fell against a tree, dazed, as the vines turned to face another foe.

———

A minute or so earlier, on the other side of the clearing, the vines were overwhelming Iskall. It was all they could do to hold the things off, and their torso was littered with gashes from the thorns. They slashed at a bunch of vines, as another one that they hadn't spotted slashed at their leg. Gasping, they fell into a kneel, but they kept on fighting.

Another vine coiled around their right arm, and when the thorns didn't do anything but peel the paint, it squeezed, turning Iskall's hi-tech cybernetic arm into a twisted lump of sparking, useless metal. They screamed at the pain, and crumpled to the floor. The vines slithered away from them and moved back to their original targets: Ren and Keralis.

Iskall was in too much pain to do anything but watch as the vines tore into Ren, as he desperately fought back, despite having left his weapons on the ground to treat Keralis. Still, in the end, he was overwhelmed, and collapsed on the ground. The vines began to wrap around Ren and Keralis, and drag the pair off.

"No." Iskall grunted, dragging themself to their feet. They grabbed their axe in their left hand, and hacked the vines away. They glared at the vines, daring them to come after their friends. The vines got the message. The consciousness of the Jungle, however, didn't, and Iskall soon found themself under attack. Clumsily defending themself with their off-hand, Iskall stood their ground even as they barely stood a chance.

Soon, the vine-creature had Iskall pinned to a tree, vines wrapped around their throat and getting tighter. But, just as Iskall made peace with the end of their life, the hand that the vines came from let go. The vine-creature fell to its knees, seemingly struggling with something invisible, and then the vines began to peel away.

BDubs was left there, shaking, as the vines receded back to a point on his shoulder. Scar, still conscious, dragged himself over to BDubs, and placed a hand on the little knot of vines that was left. And the little knot of vines withered and died, with little pain to BDubs, and the Jungle died.

A strange force echoed out from the spot where the consciousness of the Jungle had died. It was like the ground shook, but you only ever had a memory of it. It echoed through the clearing, brutally shaking Cub and Keralis awake, and causing Scar and Iskall to both lose their balance. This Un-Tremor echoed across the world, and across every world, where it was felt by every powerful entity it met.

Tango, an immortal, felt the Un-Tremor, and immediately stopped pretending to sleep. He quickly sent X a message, then, reading the reply, laughed out loud with relief. Xisuma, an admin on his own turf, felt the Un-Tremor, and a knowing, delighted smile appeared on his face, the twinkle in his eyes visible even through his helmet as he assured Tango that he was ok.

Two masked and winged figures, seeking a friend who they desperately hoped was still alive, felt the Un-Tremor, and their hearts sank just a little. Their mortal enemies, fae who had been watching the battle go down with quite the interest, cheered and laughed and were generally relieved that their chosen had won out in the end. 

Other monsters in other hidden places felt the Un-Tremor, most of them turning over and going back to sleep. It felt the Un-Tremor too. It had been slumbering for centuries, which was a mercy to all sentient life. But then, at the Un-Tremor, It woke up, three glowing red eyes flicking open in the murky deep. And It began to scheme.

Still, all of those stories are not our story. In our story, BDubs collapsed into Scar's arms, shaking. Both of them had had a harrowing experience in the past day, and so the other's company was all that mattered. Well, until Scar dragged Iskall into the hug, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And after this... there is only Epilogue.
> 
> And the sequel, but that’ll have to wait a couple days.


	27. Epilogue: Aftermath

_Entry number one... again._

_I've started a new journal, for this season and the upcoming new one. The nHo may be gone, but maybe that's for the best. Maybe it's good that Doc and I are okay. I wonder what happened to Etho and Beef, though. I hope they're okay._

_I'm looking to the future now, though. I might stay away from jungles for a bit, maybe build a nice village in the plains next season. Anyways, I must go. Doc and I are off to see if we can go buy that mansion!_

_Long live, uh... you know what? Long live me.  
BDoubleO100_

.......................

"You never told me you had a cybernetic arm." Doc pointed out, helping put the prosthetic in question back together. Iskall grimaced.

"I didn’t really want to mention it before." They explained. “I was going to tell everyone eventually, but only after I had come to terms with it, you know?”

"Makes sense." Doc nodded. There was an amicable silence between the two for a few seconds, and then all that was said were instructions from Iskall on how to put their arm back together.

"You okay?" Doc asked. "Being kidnapped can be-"

"Stop." Iskall frowned. "I wasn't even awake for most of it, and I don't need to-"

———

"- be treated like glass, Cub!" Scar protested. "I'm fine, I promise!"

"I'm worried about you, Scar!" Cub yelled, then sighed. "I let this happen. I let you be possessed by- by that _monster_ all season. So you'll forgive me if I start worrying a bit more."

"You didn't let anything happen, Cub. None of this was your fault. I can look after myself." Scar explained. Cub had no response. The silence crackled in the air, tense and electric. Then Scar put his elytra on, and-

———

\- took off, trying to get away from BDubs, cackling like a madman. BDubs followed in hot pursuit.

"You read my dia- journal!" BDubs yelled, shaking a book at Keralis.

"You left it in my base, Bubbles!" Keralis explained, flying further away.

"We SHARE a base, Keralis!" BDubs protested. In response, Keralis turned around, flying right past an angry BDubs, which is always incredibly dangerous. He whispered three words in BDubs' ear as he flew by:

"Long live you!"

BDubs made an angry noise, then-

———

\- turned to follow Cleo, after she stepped through the portal. Ren looked back at the server behind him, and smiled. Things had been good. Well, except for the bit with the Jungle at the very end. He knew he hadn't been able to save Tomato Yoshi, and his heart ached a little at that, but still, a part of him held hope that Tomato Yoshi was out there, living out his life in the now-dead Jungle.

Still, you did what you could, and you hoped where you would. After all, things could be-

———

\- much, much worse. This was much, much worse. It was a disaster of epic proportions. Tango had taken one look at the plans for Impulse's base, and said:

"A hidden underwater level!? That's just asking for something to go wrong."

"Yeah, you're right. I'll scrap it." Impulse assured him. "Besides, who would even need to make use of a hidden underwater floor of their base!?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who, indeed?
> 
> Anyways, thank you all for reading! The support for this story has been amazing, honestly.  
> The sequel is also already out on Wattpad, and I’m going to start moving it over to ao3 on February 2nd, and then posting every other day, since it’s 1 short chapter and 7 long chapters, instead of 24 short chapters and 3 long chapters.  
> There also will, after that, be a third book in the series, which will come out on ao3 first.  
> Thanks again!  
> OdalRune, signing off from the past!


End file.
